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pbraue13's review against another edition
2.0
Not good. Woof. Another subpar sequel to a book....that is more of a classic cause of its film adaptation for many reasons. It's previous book isn't awful, but it looks like something that could win a Nobel Prize compared to this book.
mujerdee's review against another edition
2.0
Beautifully written but very hollow follow up to Witches of Eastwick. Updike has no real grasp of how women actually think and what they might feel: he is a product of his generation. I cut him slack in my 20s- two decades later I find I have no patience for his interpretation of how these women behave. In the first book, very little was made of the witchcraft: it just was. Tacit acknowledgement of magic in this latest book takes something away from the story, IMHO. And the subplot, sci-fi, no less, is flat out silly. Not half the book the Witches of Eastwick, with all its warts and witchiness/bitchiness was.
michael__'s review against another edition
4.0
Is it wild that I think I enjoyed this more than The Witches of Eastwick? I remember the collective disappointment when this novel was first released (lord, almost a decade ago), but I found myself pleasantly surprised.
Widows opens with our (anti?)heroines over three decades removed from the havoc they wreaked in Witches, dispersed around the country and widowed from the husbands they conjured for themselves after the end of the latter novel. Lonely and despondent, they slowly start to reconnect, traveling the world for a small while and then eventually settling in a vacation home in Eastwick to rifle up old memories. Too bad their awful reputation didn't fade along with their youth.
The thing with Updike is that I'm finally starting to not expect a ton of plot going into his novels. Don't get me wrong, there is a small thread of story that eventually hits a climax here, but this novel ends up being a meditation on loss, growing older, and facing your demons. This worked for me, though, because there's something so poignant about Updike revisiting some of his most beloved characters at the end of their lives at the end of his own life (he died a few months after this was published). Do I necessarily like and/or have sympathy for Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie? No, but it's easy to appreciate their desperation to find salvation for the wrongs they've committed before their time is up. Regardless of how I feel about them, I feel like I know these characters and their strange little town, and even though I just read Witches a few months ago, Updike writes it so well that I felt like I was nostalgically checking in on old friends from decades ago.
Gone are (most of) the fun antics from the previous novel, but there's such an overarching sense of longing to the story - longing for the past, longing for absolution, longing for something more - that it's hard to not be absorbed in these characters' various internal struggles.
Widows opens with our (anti?)heroines over three decades removed from the havoc they wreaked in Witches, dispersed around the country and widowed from the husbands they conjured for themselves after the end of the latter novel. Lonely and despondent, they slowly start to reconnect, traveling the world for a small while and then eventually settling in a vacation home in Eastwick to rifle up old memories. Too bad their awful reputation didn't fade along with their youth.
The thing with Updike is that I'm finally starting to not expect a ton of plot going into his novels. Don't get me wrong, there is a small thread of story that eventually hits a climax here, but this novel ends up being a meditation on loss, growing older, and facing your demons. This worked for me, though, because there's something so poignant about Updike revisiting some of his most beloved characters at the end of their lives at the end of his own life (he died a few months after this was published). Do I necessarily like and/or have sympathy for Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie? No, but it's easy to appreciate their desperation to find salvation for the wrongs they've committed before their time is up. Regardless of how I feel about them, I feel like I know these characters and their strange little town, and even though I just read Witches a few months ago, Updike writes it so well that I felt like I was nostalgically checking in on old friends from decades ago.
Gone are (most of) the fun antics from the previous novel, but there's such an overarching sense of longing to the story - longing for the past, longing for absolution, longing for something more - that it's hard to not be absorbed in these characters' various internal struggles.
maekay's review against another edition
Same issues as Witches of Eastwick - wiring is racist and misogynistic, less "complicated women" and more "male writer can't be bothered to try to understand women's motivation"
cressyda's review
4.0
What the first one should have been. There was no chauvanist snark, the ladies were way more balanced as characters, and the story was beautiful. I enjoyed it infinitely more than "Witches". I do only give it 4 stars however, because I had to wrestle my way through some of Updike's overly long sentences that don't seem to go anywhere. There didn't seem to be as many of them as in the first book, but they were still present and still as tedious as ever.
smbla's review against another edition
3.0
It is always a pleasure to read Updike. I think I may have expected too much of this book since I loved the 1st one and wanted Widows to surpass the Witches.
kristinmayle's review against another edition
2.0
As I read this book, I am realizing that the movie of "The Witches of Eastwick" must be very different from the book, which I did not read. So while I certainly understand what's going on in this sequal, I don't understand some of the characters references.
charlottesometimes's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
25 years later, and possibly more racist, misogynistic and homophobic that the first book.
I suppose it’s impressive, in a very depressing way.
Sadly, Updike appears not to have taken the opportunity over the quarter century since he last wrote about these characters to speak to even one woman.
Similarly, he chose not to listen to all the readers who tried to explain to him the difference between a novel and an unsolicited lecture.
katarzynabosman's review against another edition
3.0
Damn Amazon! I wanted to download Witches of Eastwick and after 50 pages I realised that I'm reading the continuation. Not bed. I like how attitude to getting older was presented from perspective of 3 different women. It made me think of generation of abandoned children caused by sexual revolution.
erinseewhyare's review against another edition
dark
sad
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
A deeply disappointing follow up to Witches of Eastwick. Really bad.